It's all very well to joke about haggis, but a good one is wonderful, and this one is very good. (Besides, it's usually served with plenty of whisky, which really helps it go down.) I'll get around to putting up my recipe for hardcore haggis, complete with very graphic photographs, but I'll confess that the last time I tried to make it, I got grossed-out and my hard-to-assemble ingredients went to waste.

This recipe is ten times easier, to both source and make. You can make it as a meatloaf, since that's what it is, but you could fool basically all Americans and most Scots by stuffing this into a beef casing (large intestine), which has the great advantages of being properly gross, with large veins running all over it, and is also legal and available in America. (To make real haggis, you need the help of a friendly butcher who will "gift" you the necessary lamb-innards, because some still give the FDA conniptions.)

Using a food processor, chop half of the lamb, the liver, onion, suet, egg, salt, pepper, sugar, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and water until finely combined. Add all remaining ingredients, mixing thoroughly until everything is just mixed together well. You want a matrix of larger and smaller pieces.

Easy: Put the mixture into the greased loaf pan and flatten the top. Bake 45 - 55 minutes in a pre-heated oven (350°F / 180°C) The centre of the loaf should be firm when pressed. Leave in the tin for around 2 - 3 minutes to cool. Gently turn on to a serving plate and serve right away.

"Authentic": Beef casings come packed in salt. Thoroughly rinse inside and out, and tie off one end. Fill with the mixture, taking care to not stretch it more than about 6" wide, because it might burst when boiling. Tie off the other end, cover with water in a pot, and simmer for 90 min, then serve in the authentic way, which involves marching it around the dining table preceded by a bagpiper. How much stuffing is too much? A casing burst on me when I stuffed it to where it was more than 6" wide. Luckily, the haggis stayed in one piece, and I was serving to Americans, who didn't notice.

It's all very well to joke about haggis, but a good one is wonderful, and this one is very good. (Besides, it's usually served with plenty of whisky, which really helps it go down.) I'll get around to putting up my recipe for hardcore haggis, complete with very graphic photographs, but I'll confess that the last time I tried to make it, I got grossed-out and my hard-to-assemble ingredients went to waste.

This recipe is ten times easier, to both source and make. You can make it as a meatloaf, since that's what it is, but you could fool basically all Americans and most Scots by stuffing this into a beef casing (large intestine), which has the great advantages of being properly gross, with large veins running all over it, and is also legal and available in America. (To make real haggis, you need the help of a friendly butcher who will "gift" you the necessary lamb-innards, because some still give the FDA conniptions.)

Using a food processor, chop half of the lamb, the liver, onion, suet, egg, salt, pepper, sugar, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and water until finely combined. Add all remaining ingredients, mixing thoroughly until everything is just mixed together well. You want a matrix of larger and smaller pieces.

Easy: Put the mixture into the greased loaf pan and flatten the top. Bake 45 - 55 minutes in a pre-heated oven (350°F / 180°C) The centre of the loaf should be firm when pressed. Leave in the tin for around 2 - 3 minutes to cool. Gently turn on to a serving plate and serve right away.

"Authentic": Beef casings come packed in salt. Thoroughly rinse inside and out, and tie off one end. Fill with the mixture, taking care to not stretch it more than about 6" wide, because it might burst when boiling. Tie off the other end, cover with water in a pot, and simmer for 90 min, then serve in the authentic way, which involves marching it around the dining table preceded by a bagpiper. How much stuffing is too much? A casing burst on me when I stuffed it to where it was more than 6" wide. Luckily, the haggis stayed in one piece, and I was serving to Americans, who didn't notice.

Serve with champit tatties and bashed neeps, of course.

If I were to make something like this, I would use my meat grinder and sausage stuffer. We actually bought a boneless of lamb and ground it ourselves for moussaka and the shawarma done on our rotisserie. I would also mix it in the KA using the paddle adding a Tbsp or two of ice cold water. The water seems to help get all the ingredients more evenly mixed. I do have beef casings as well.

If I were to make something like this, I would use my meat grinder and sausage stuffer.

Thanks for your input. I have a Waring meat-grinder that could almost stand in for the wood-chipper in "Fargo," but the largest die size they make is too small for my liking. I could have certainly used it to stuff the casing, with the die and cutting blade removed, but a tablespoon did the job just fine.

You already have the beef casing, which is by far the hardest ingredient to find, so give it a swing and see what you think. Some coarse creatures serve it flambeed with whisky, but that's just a waste of good whisky.

OutRIAAage, have you ever read Dariana Allen's cookbooks? She is an Irish chef, who does a lot with traditional recipes.

Oh boy! You mean her Forgotten Skills of Cooking, which I had unbelievably never heard of. Suggestions like that are exactly why I joined this forum!

It takes us a little off-topic, but I grew up literally eating the Scottish countryside. The gold prize goes to wild strawberries, tiny flavour-bombs that I can spot on an embankment even from a speeding bus, but I can also spot real horse mushrooms from 200 yards away

We also knew when and where the shaggy ink-caps fruited. (If you're lucky enough to find them, use them within a few hours of picking, or put them in a bowl and let them quickly dissolve into the ink of their name, which is a dead ringer for squid ink, and just as tasty.)

My friends and I browsed on chamomile, ate the delicate internal stems of flowering grasses, and used sticks to bring down hundreds of crab-apples (not really edible, until transformed into crab apple jelly by our moms).

But as we lived on a mixed-purpose farm that had a market garden, our "foraging" included potatoes, turnips, kale, and the like, and our moms would send us out with a basket with orders to bring back rhubarb, cultivated strawberries, and other things that required us to run the gantlet of the terrifying market gardener with his shotgun. (He caught us literally red-handed once, stealing his rhubarb, but he utterly mystified us by putting down his shotgun and showing us how to pull rhubarb without damaging the plant.)

Our moms would also ask for cultivated apples, with no acknowledgement that this required breaking into distant orchards that were guarded by trip-wires connected to shotguns and much worse, so of course we approached that like the D-Day landings. Fun times.

Any other fun foraging stories out there? Or is there a separate thread for that? That would make more sense.

...and our moms would send us out with a basket with orders to bring back rhubarb, cultivated strawberries, and other things that required us to run the gantlet of the terrifying market gardener with his shotgun. (He caught us literally red-handed once, stealing his rhubarb, but he utterly mystified us by putting down his shotgun and showing us how to pull rhubarb without damaging the plant.)...

Any other fun foraging stories out there? Or is there a separate thread for that? That would make more sense.

My Dad wasn't as lucky as you were with running the gauntlet. He didn't come home with apples - he came home with a few pieces of rock salt in his bottom.

Since you're the OP of this thread, feel free to wander it wherever you want. However, it might be easier to discuss the foraging topic if it had a dedicated thread. The bonus? Not having to see the image of that Haggis every time I scroll through!

__________________"Cooking is the art of adjustment." ~~~Jacques Pépin

"A dream is a festival of lights within your mind."~~~Joan Walsh Anglund

My Dad wasn't as lucky as you were with running the gauntlet. He didn't come home with apples - he came home with a few pieces of rock salt in his bottom.

Since you're the OP of this thread, feel free to wander it wherever you want. However, it might be easier to discuss the foraging topic if it had a dedicated thread. The bonus? Not having to see the image of that Haggis every time I scroll through!

Fun stories, aren't they? I'll never forget the time Gavin got his underwear caught in an apple tree-branch and dangled there with the most extreme weggie ever while we couldn't help for laughing. I've been shot at by a bellowing farmer, but I strongly suspect he was using blanks: those were kinder times.

I haven't been here long enough to know how to reposition this part of the thread, but I'll shortly figure out where to put it, especially if there isn't an entire "foraging" category.

Thanks for your input. I have a Waring meat-grinder that could almost stand in for the wood-chipper in "Fargo," but the largest die size they make is too small for my liking. I could have certainly used it to stuff the casing, with the die and cutting blade removed, but a tablespoon did the job just fine.

You already have the beef casing, which is by far the hardest ingredient to find, so give it a swing and see what you think. Some coarse creatures serve it flambeed with whisky, but that's just a waste of good whisky.

Check for aftermarket parts. When we were still using the KA to grind meat before we bought the LEM, Craig started complaining about the die sizes and the blades once he really started reading up on the finer points of sausage making and getting more practice. I found differently shaped blades and different die sizes on Amazon for the KA and they did make a big difference, though they didn't get many uses before be bought the LEM grinder.

Um no unless Craig wants to eat it all himself. Just doesn't appeal to me and reminds me too much of something else. Won't go into details but it involves the pugs and eating things they shouldn't.

Haggis, PretendoutRIAAge[B][CENTER][SIZE="3"]Haggis, Pretend[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
It's all very well to joke about haggis, but a good one is wonderful, and this one is very good. (Besides, it's usually served with plenty of whisky, which really helps it go down.) I'll get around to putting up my recipe for hardcore haggis, complete with very graphic photographs, but I'll confess that the last time I tried to make it, I got grossed-out and my hard-to-assemble ingredients went to waste.
This recipe is ten times easier, to both source and make. You can make it as a meatloaf, since that's what it is, but you could fool basically all Americans and most Scots by stuffing this into a beef casing (large intestine), which has the great advantages of being properly gross, with large veins running all over it, and is also legal and available in America. (To make real haggis, you need the help of a friendly butcher who will "gift" you the necessary lamb-innards, because some still give the FDA conniptions.)
[CENTER][IMG]https://hungrywoolf.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/img_7526.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]
1 lb / 500 g ground lamb
7 oz / 200 g lamb's liver cut into very small pieces (beef liver does fine as a substitute)
4 fl oz / 125 ml water
1 finely chopped small onion
1 large egg
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
6 oz / 175 g steelcut/pinhead oats
4 oz suet (much preferred) or lard
1 large beef casing (optional)
Using a food processor, chop half of the lamb, the liver, onion, suet, egg, salt, pepper, sugar, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and water until finely combined. Add all remaining ingredients, mixing thoroughly until everything is just mixed together well. You want a matrix of larger and smaller pieces.
[B]Easy: [/B]Put the mixture into the greased loaf pan and flatten the top. Bake 45 - 55 minutes in a pre-heated oven (350°F / 180°C) The centre of the loaf should be firm when pressed. Leave in the tin for around 2 - 3 minutes to cool. Gently turn on to a serving plate and serve right away.
[B]"Authentic": [/B]Beef casings come packed in salt. Thoroughly rinse inside and out, and tie off one end. Fill with the mixture, taking care to not stretch it more than about 6" wide, because it might burst when boiling. Tie off the other end, cover with water in a pot, and simmer for 90 min, then serve in the authentic way, which involves marching it around the dining table preceded by a bagpiper. How much stuffing is too much? A casing burst on me when I stuffed it to where it was more than 6" wide. Luckily, the haggis stayed in one piece, and I was serving to Americans, who didn't notice.
Serve with champit tatties and bashed neeps, of course.3 stars
1 reviews